Strawberries for Mother's Day

I received a call from one of the ladies at my office who asked if I took orders. They had tried one of my cakes and wanted to order one for the ladies in her department to celebrate Mother's Day. Other than wanting a white cake with white icing, I got very little direction and was told to just use my imagination and make it pretty. You can see the result above. There are some logistical problems to a cake like this. I did the cake the evening before it was due, except for the strawberries. I sliced those on a mandolin and put them in a container in the fridge overnight. The reason is that if you put them on the cake, the juice from the strawberries will begin to melt the icing because the sugar will pull all the moisture out of the cut berries. I packed it up in the morning and took it in to the office. I got in early that morning so I could get it ready. As soon as I got there, I put the strawberries on paper towels to pull out as much of the moisture as I could. After maybe 30 minutes, I then put the strawberries on top, with the expectation that they would last at least a couple of hours before causing any mischief on the cake. It worked. I took the cake to the ladies and they loved it. It didn't last long enough for the icing to have any issues. The trick with this is to eat it within a few hours of putting the sliced berries on. If I had made some sort of thickened puree to go on top instead, it probably would have lasted quite a while. That wasn't the effect that I was going for though. I added the grass because the basket of berries looked like it needed to be on a field of fresh grass. It makes for a pretty presentation.